When an entrepreneur tasks an SEO expert to promote his website, that specialist first makes a strategy. Some people use different techniques, including improving the quality of content, increasing website speed, and link building. Obviously, getting external links on a regular basis has a positive impact on your website’s ranking positions and the amount of organic traffic.
However, not all links can be as beneficial as they may seem at first glance. The fact is that some link building practices are prohibited by Google’s rules. The bad backlinks include those that are obtained through link farming. In this article you can find the answer to the question of what is a link farm and how it affects the SEO promotion of a website on the Internet.
❓ What is Link Farming?
Today on forums related to search engine optimization, you can often find posts by users who are looking for link farming meaning and what link farming looks like. Actually, a link farm is an ordinary website, the main purpose of which is to place various links. In other words, the owner of such a website doesn’t try to provide useful content to its readers but simply aims at personal material gain. Here is what the principle of link farming works:
The online farm owner engages with other brands, companies and websites. He places links in existing articles or new posts, receiving financial rewards. As a rule, such platforms do not live long, as the Google search engine actively fights against rule violators.
When you’re looking for options for getting backlinks, you may come across a link farm and not even realize that such a method won’t be useful for you. However, experienced search engine optimizers can recognize a link farm without any effort at all.
🔍 Google and Link Farming
It’s not hard to guess that various manipulations, including link farming are not legitimate practices. Google has long since officially spoken out about the rules of website promotion and they insist that all players are on equal terms. This means that link farming refers to black hat SEO techniques. These are search engine optimization techniques that are officially banned, according to Google’s rules.
In 2022, Google presented an innovative algorithm called SpamBrain, which is able to notice various manipulations by webmasters. It works based on machine learning and sees if you have been getting links from link farms. This can both simply slow down your SEO promotion and can also threaten you with penalties. Surprisingly, this practice will be harmful to your site even if you got the link black hat method link, not consciously.
❓ Is Link Farming Worth the Possible Risk for SEO promotion?
Link farming at first glance may seem like a very tempting tactic, as you can easily and simply build up link mass for your web resource. Many beginners are tempted when they learn about this method of promotion. However, no one tells them about the negative consequences of link farming. Here’s how it can affect your website:
🔻 Google’s search algorithms value and consider only quality links in ranking.
🔻 As a rule, link farms do not work for a long time as they get banned. Therefore, a purchased link may disappear after a few days or weeks.
🔻 There is a high probability that you will receive serious penalties from Google. This will noticeably affect the number of customers on your website.
After analyzing all the above facts, we can surely say that getting hyperlinks through link farming is not worth the risks.
⚙️ Ways to Identify a Link Farm
Now you realize that it’s better to stay away from this tactic of building up your link profile, as it can do a lot of damage to your platform. Knowing what is a link farm will make it easier for you to recognize such a site that violates Google’s search engine rules. Moreover, we have compiled 7 factors for you that will help you understand whether a website is a link farm or not.
1️⃣ Basic Low Quality Design
People who own a link farm are not accustomed to investing significantly in the creation of a website. For them, the main task is to get the maximum benefit with minimal investment. That is why they usually don’t have web designers working on such websites. Instead, they work with the cheapest builders and choose common page design templates. By looking at the sample image we provided above, you can clearly see what a typical link farm looks like. No unique fonts, personal style, or branding. They use template pages because they don’t want to spend their time, effort and money on a website.
A person who focuses on promoting online and attracting readers and potential customers will try to create the perfect website. This consists of creating a unique design, adding innovative features, building logical page navigation, and so on.
2️⃣ Content of Low Quality
Recognizing a website that belongs to the category of link farming is not difficult if you pay attention to the content in detail. As we said above, they do not want to make their site better, so they use primitive texts. In the past, link farms simply copied texts from other sites, combining them into one whole article. Today, thanks to innovative technologies and features, the content of such websites is characterized by a noticeable Chat GPT style. The owners utilize popular artificial intelligence services to get more content.
In any case, content that is not unique and written by AI is poorly ranked by Google’s search algorithms. Moreover, you can easily determine the quality of content. There are various uniqueness checking and AI detection services, including 1text and Copyleaks. For experienced copywriters, recognizing low-quality content is a task they can handle even without third-party online tools. Bad content is also characterized by the presence of a large number of trigger words and a lack of usefulness to the reader.
3️⃣ Articles on Unrelated Topics
We have already told you that low-quality content directly indicates a link farm. However, in some cases, even articles of normal quality can be published on such websites. The only feature is the inconsistency with the theme of this resource. If the owner of a farm gets an order to post a link and an article on a different topic, most likely, he will agree to get more profit.
Imagine visiting the website and seeing a large number of articles. If most of them are written on completely different topics, this can be a great signal of link farming. For example, if the first article focuses on current fashion and the second is written about professional medicine, this should make you somewhat suspicious. In the realm of SEO, such platforms are called general websites. A good platform will not cover too many topics on one site. It’s better to professionally specialize in one niche than to poorly cover very different areas of our lives.
4️⃣ Author and About Information Tip
The next thing to consider is the website’s structure. You should pay attention to the website footer, which is usually where all the headings and categories are located. You know that almost all websites have an «About Us», «Who We Are» or «About the Author» unit. Link farm owners don’t want to leave any information about themselves to avoid potential problems in the future with those who order backlink placement.
All sites that operate honestly and try to get more customers leave information about themselves. This helps customers to know the contact information, branding history, company values and much more. Although, lately link farming websites have started creating a block about the author by coming up with fake information.
5️⃣ Irrelevant Links
Of course, websites can and should publish external links on their resources. The presence of links helps search engine robots to see that you provide useful content to your readers. Any website owner knows very well that the links posted should be relevant and relevant to the topic. If you see content written on one topic and the link leads to a resource with a different topic, it can be a suspicious signal.
One of the main rules of link building states that the link must first of all correspond to the topic. Otherwise, it will not bring any benefit to your site, as Google may evaluate such actions as manipulation of getting backlinks for the platform owner’s own benefit. When you are looking for a potential donor, look at what links are placed on his resource, their number and whether they correspond to the topic at all.
6️⃣ Anchors
Surprisingly, anchors can tell you much more about a website than most metrics. In a natural environment, users rarely link with exact keywords — they prefer brand mentions, titles, or neutral phrases.
That’s why manipulated link profiles stand out so clearly: repetitive commercial anchors, identical wording across multiple pages, and obvious SEO-style phrasing.
The main difficulty is speed. Collecting anchors manually requires opening dozens of links and reviewing them individually, which quickly becomes impractical when analyzing competitors. Instead, it’s easier to run a quick backlink anchor check that shows how links actually look in practice before diving into deeper analysis tools.
7️⃣ Number of Outbound Links
Another method usually used to determine the potential link farm front of you is the number of links referred to other websites. As a rule, quality websites will contain a reasonable number of outbound links that guide users to other useful resources. However, sites involved in this promotion method usually contain a very large number of outbound links for a small amount of unique content.
For example, a website with only a few pages of thin content but pointing out to 4-8 external domains is questionable. This means that the owner is trying to get as many orders as possible, generating a profit. A high number of outbound links is a sign that the site does not offer any added value to its users.
❓ What Can Be Done Instead of Link Farming?
Do you know the answer to the question of what is link farming in terms of risks? Some websites using link farming succeed in passing unnoticed through search engine algorithms and getting better rankings. This is actually a very risky step and we recommend using other white hat SEO promotion tactics. You should focus on getting as many natural external links as possible that will provide you with benefits. Create useful and quality content, use different anchors and different methods of getting external links.
At NeedMyLink, we know how to help your website promote effectively and safely on the Internet to get more real customers. We provide a wide range of link building services and are always happy to have new cooperation.
